Technology blessed us with uncountable benefits. The change it has brought to our lives is revolutionary. Among many inventions of this technological revolution, the mobile phone keeps on influencing the lives of people to the greatest extent.
But, we could not realize when the usage of mobile phones reached unsafe and unhealthy limits. No one wanted to avail the good of technology at the cost of some essential life skills. Today, you see a cell phone in the hand of every person around. And, our next generation, considering us their role models, has learned this from us. Not just that, they have made it an indispensable part of their lives.
You might not find any problem with it. But excessive, and in many cases, the sole dependence on a gadget is doing great harm to their efficiency in other areas of life.
As Jenny Radesky, a Clinical Instructor at Boston University School of Medicine, said, ‘parents need to increase their children’s interaction with other humans directly more than their interaction with phones and tablets.’ Thus, there needs to be a limit to the ever-rising use of smartphones among children and teens.
You can use apps like FamilyTime which we found as the FamilyTime parental control app for iPhone and android to put such controls flexibly and smartly. It is essential because this is what over usage of phones is doing to your children.
Communication Skills
Who would like their kids speaking confidently, talking to others in the gatherings quite eloquently, and giving impressive presentations when in school? Yes, this is what mobile phone usage takes away from your kids. Research supports the idea that using a cell phone reduces children’s need to communicate as they find their entertainment and, nowadays, studies’ need completed through a device. So, the maximum things they learn are from gadgets.
This greatly affects their ability to develop communication skills, learn the language, and challenge themselves with new words and ways to speak. They remain deficient at multiple fronts.
Socializing Skills
Another very important skill that kids with excessive smartphone usage lacks. During childhood, it is necessary that a kid spends time with parents or people around. They must understand the essence of a family and relations. And if they do not do so, they miss an essential element of their upbringing.
It has been found that parents place mobile phones in the hands of kids as a substitute for the time they should have spent with them. Thus, these children lack socializing skills. They face difficulty in making relationships. And, if they make new relations, they are poor at managing them or sustaining them.
Fine Motor skills
These skills include writing and other tasks requiring dexterity like painting, sketching, even eating and tying shoelaces, etc. Humans learn from the world they inhabit. And, we live in a 3-D world and these experiences make us understand and develop our cognitions. Dealing with things in real, like playing with hands, using mental capabilities into using hands in certain ways, etc., make us develop particular skills. But the experience with the screen is 2-D and it deprives a person of many learning experiences that were only possible in a 3-D world.
Hypothetically, this can also affect their perceptions of reality. No doubt that many studies have explained the causal effect between excessive screen usage and under-developed cognitive abilities.
What Can You Do About It?
No parent would like to let their kids have insufficient learning experiences. So, taking them out of the world of smartphones is the first step. FamilyTime app can allow you to manage the routines of your kids’ mobile phone usage with minimum effort.
You can set a time limit and schedules their phone usage through the following ways.
- Set time limits as per the safe phone using guidelines and the phone will be blocked when the limit for a day is met
- Make personalized schedules for the use of the device. It will allow you to block the device during lunch or study hours etc.
- Put customizable instant locks for specific apps or overall device
- Schedule the usage for specific apps
By the virtue of these and many other features, we find it the best parental control app for iPhone and Android. Its features outscore many other parental apps. You can check out their website and also download FamilyTime app now to know more. Try it and make your parenting easier and more effective.
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